Hesione

Another guest arrives after many years away in the far reaches of the empire: Hesione’s sister, Lady Ariadne Utterword, played by Ms. Fraser with magnificently decadent ennui in an exquisitely calibrated comic turn — by far the sharpest on display.

Last year, the Musée d’Orsay purchased “Hercules Delivering Hesione,” by the German master Hans Thoma.

After all, no actress plays Shakespeare's Beatrice, Shaw's Hesione or Rattigan's Hester the same way.

Anyone who thinks Shaw a dry old stick should look at Hesione Hushabye's astonishing speech on the transfiguring power of love, which here passes almost unnoticed.

Hercules, on his return from the scene of one of his stupendous labors, heard the proclamation, and, with no other weapon than the oaken club he generally carried, slew the monster just as he was about to drag poor Hesione down into his slimy cave.